Actor's and Sin

{{short description|1952 film by Ben Hecht and Lee Garmes}} {{Use mdy dates|date=February 2026}} {{Infobox film | name = Actors and Sin | image = Actors and Sin theatrical poster.jpg | alt = theatrical poster | director = {{plainlist| * Ben Hecht * Lee Garmes }} | producer = Ben Hecht | writer = Ben Hecht | narrator = {{plainlist| * Dan O'Herlihy * Ben Hecht }} | starring = {{plainlist| * Edward G. Robinson * Eddie Albert * Marsha Hunt }} | music = George Antheil | cinematography = Lee Garmes | editing = Otto Ludwig | color_process = Black and white | studio = Sid Kuller Productions | distributor = United Artists | released = {{Film date|1952|5|29|New York|ref1=<ref name="thompson"/>}} | runtime = 86 minutes | country = United States | language = English | budget = $127,000<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://archive.org/details/variety186-1952-06/page/n117/mode/1up?q=%22brought+in+at%22|magazine=Variety|title=Backers Barb Ben|date=11 June 1952|page=54}}</ref> }}

'''''Actors and Sin''''' (screen title: '''''Actor's and Sin''''') is a 1952 American comedy film written, produced and directed by Ben Hecht.<ref name="Life Magazine">{{cite magazine|title=Debut of a Sinner|publisher=Life magazine|date=1952-06-23|volume=32|issue=25|pages=121–122, 124|issn=0024-3019| magazine=Time|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yVUEAAAAMBAJ&q=%22Actors+and+Sin%22&pg=PA121}}</ref> The film marks Edward G. Robinson's second film with actress Marsha Hunt.<ref name="Robert Beck">{{cite book|title=The Edward G. Robinson encyclopedia|publisher=McFarland|author=Robert Beck|year=2002|pages=21|isbn=0-7864-1230-5|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nIBZAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Actors+and+Sin%22}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Theatre arts, Volume 36|publisher=Theatre Arts, Inc.|author=Society of Arts and Crafts (Detroit, Mich.)|year=1952|pages=42, 85}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Creative careers in Hollywood|publisher=Allworth Communications, Inc.|author=Laurie Scheer|year=2002|pages=46–47|isbn=1-58115-243-4|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PEThCwOUFhAC&q=%22Actors+and+Sin%22&pg=PA47}}</ref> It is also known by its section names of "Actor's Blood" and "Woman of Sin". Lee Garmes was codirector and cinematographer, as he was on most of the films that Hecht directed.

==Plot== The film lampoons the Hollywood motion-picture industry and is separated into two sections.

=== Actor's Blood === In New York. Broadway star Marcia Tillayou has been found shot dead in her apartment. Her father Maurice is also an actor and had watched her theater career rise as his own declined. She had let success overcome her, and had thus alienated critics, fans, producers and her playwright husband. She experienced several stage flops before being murdered.

=== Woman of Sin === In Hollywood. Dishonest writers' agent Orlando Higgens has been receiving frantic calls from Daisy Marcher about a screenplay that she had written titled ''Woman of Sin''. Thinking they are crank calls, Higgens tells her to never again call his office. He then learns that because of a mail mixup, her screenplay had been received by film mogul J.B. Cobb, a man who had once passed on ''Gone With the Wind'' based on Higgins' advice. Cobb thinks that Higgins sent the script and offers him a lucrative sum for the rights. However, Higgins does not know where Daisy is or that she is actually a nine-year-old child.

==Cast== ===Actor's Blood=== {{div col|colwidth=30em}} *Edward G. Robinson as Maurice Tillayou *Marsha Hunt as Marcia Tillayou *Dan O'Herlihy as Alfred O'Shea, Narrator *Rudolph Anders as Otto Lachsley *Alice Key as Miss Thompson, Tommy *Rick Roman as Clyde Veering *Peter Brocco as Frederick Herbert *Elizabeth Root as Mrs. Herbert *Joseph Mell as George Murray *Irene Martin as Mrs. Murray *Herb Bernard as Emile *Robert Carson as Thomas Hayne {{div col end}} ===Woman of Sin=== {{div col|colwidth=30em}} *Ben Hecht as Narrator *Eddie Albert as Orlando Higgens *Alan Reed as Jerome (J.B.) Cobb *Tracey Roberts as Miss Flannigan *Paul Guilfoyle as Mr. Blue *Douglas Evans as Mr. Devlin *Jody Gilbert as Mrs. Egelhofer *George Baxter as Vincent Brown *George Keymas as Bill Sweitzer, Producer *Toni Carroll as Millicent, Movie Star *John Crawford as Gilbert, Movie Hero *Kathleen Mulqueen as Miss Wright *Alan Mendez as Captain Moriarity *Sam Rosen as Joseph Danello  *Jenny Hecht as Millicent Egelhofer, Daisy Marcher *Cameo appearances by: *Betty Field, Louis B. Mayer, and Jack L. Warner {{div col end}}

== Release == Prior to the film's release, several theater chains refused to screen the film because it lampoons the film industry. This resulted in a $250,000 lawsuit by United Artists and Sid Kuller Productions against the ABC Theatres Company.<ref name="The New York Times2">{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1952/07/16/archives/hechts-new-film-in-a-legal-battle-coast-theatre-refuses-to-show.html | title=Hecht's New Film in a Legal Battle | work=The New York Times | date=1952-07-16 | access-date=2011-05-22|page=21}}</ref> The Beverly Canon Theater in Beverly Hills, California was specifically targeted for having canceled an existing agreement to rent the film for exhibition beginning on July 24, 1952.<ref>{{Cite news |date=1952-07-15 |title=Theater Sued Over Refusal to Show Film |work=Los Angeles Times |page=14}}</ref> However, the film opened as planned at the theater on July 24.

==Reception== In a contemporary review for ''The New York Times'', critic Howard Thompson characterized the stories as "an almost reverential close-up of a stage actor's senile egomania and an atomically conceived blast at front-office intellectuality in the film factories" and wrote: "'Actor's Blood' is a stiff, glum and narcissistic tale ... the whole episode flounders midway between a conversational seance and a straight farce. 'Woman of Sin' is straight farce, with an idea so devastatingly impudent that only Mr. Hecht could claim it."<ref name="thompson">{{Cite news|last=Thompson|first=Howard|date=1952-05-30|title=The Screen: Three Films in Premieres Here|page=11|work=The New York Times}}</ref>

Critic Edwin Schallert of the ''Los Angeles Times'' wrote: "Chiefly this film may be discerned as an oddity in movie-making and its satire on Hollywood, much publicized, can hardly be construed as offensive even by the greatest devotee of the picture industry, because it deals with an era admittedly dated and quite definitely that."<ref name="schallert">{{Cite news |last=Schallert |first=Edwin |date=1952-07-26 |title='Actors and Sin' Oddity Best in Studio Satire |work=Los Angeles Times |page=9}}</ref>

In the New York ''Daily News'', reviewer Dorothy Masters wrote: "'Woman of Sin' is a practically flawless satire, superbly cast, brilliantly written, masterfully directed and loaded with comedy. ... 'Actor's Blood' has many good lines and a spectacular plot, but falls down in presentation."<ref name="masters">{{cite news |last=Masters |first=Dorothy |date=1952-05-30 |title=Superb Lampooning in 'Actors and Sin' |work=New York Daily News |page=37}}</ref>

In ''The Boston Globe'', critic Marjory Adams wrote that the legal row "would indicate that producers have no sense of humor or that the satire struck home too forcibly" and the first story "may prove too macabre for some tastes" but "'Woman of Sin' is completely delightful in its barbed {{Sic|humour}}"<ref name="adams">{{cite news |last=Adams |first=Marjory |date=1952-09-08 |title="Actors and Sin" Brightens Beacon Hill |work=The Boston Globe |page=23}}</ref>

==References== {{reflist|colwidth=30em}}

==External links== *{{IMDb title|id=0044327|title=Actors and Sin}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Actors and Sin}} Category:1952 films Category:Films directed by Ben Hecht Category:American comedy-drama films Category:1952 comedy-drama films Category:American black-and-white films Category:Films with screenplays by Ben Hecht Category:Films scored by George Antheil Category:United Artists films Category:1952 English-language films Category:1952 American films Category:English-language comedy-drama films